45 Days Of CCS, #39: Ruby Arnone, Clover Ajamie, Taylor Hunt

Ruby Arnone's And The Bat is their version of the Aesop's fable assignment. Like many who have taken it on, they have chosen to bend it to their own interests and concerns rather than a more straightforward adaptation. In this case, Arnone did a take on "The Birds, The Beasts, And The Bat," the fable about a bat who sits out a war between the birds and beasts by not identifying with either side but gets shunned as a result. Arnone abandons that narrative to examine the genocide in Palestine, noting that war is rarely a conflict between morally equivalent sides. This is an unapologetically didactic comic with some lovely pencil drawings.

Clover Ajamie's Healer's Tale is a beautiful, wordless story about a medicine woman of some kind who goes about her days in the forest. She's looking to heal trees but encounters signs of a mysterious and benevolent magic that's clearly healing the forest she loves so much. There's a delightful sense of the methodical as she goes about her day, munching on toast as she digs around the mushrooms. The encounter she has at the end feels entirely earned in its warmth and intimacy, and all of this is heightened by Ajamie's use of browns, yellows, and oranges. 

Tyler Hunt's contribution last year was very funny, and this year's God's Away On Business mixes humor and existential discovery. Done as part of the Ed Emberley assignment (made mostly out of squares, triangles, and circles), it's about a despondent priest who kills himself in order to get an audience with god. Despite that angle, this is actually a funny comic. The priest winds up in limbo, guided by a skeleton bureaucrat through a dizzying environment before meeting the creator. He's told by god that he just got burned out because Earth was especially annoying. The priest steals god's pen and is ready to right some wrongs before being asked by the skeleton, "Do you think you won't get tired, too?" Hunt really goes to town on the cartooning details, even if those turn out to be a shaggy dog story. The best thing about the story is its pacing, as Hunt keeps the reader engaged from the very beginning, and the priest's case against god is very compelling. 

45 Days Of CCS, #31: Taylor Hunt, Sofia Martin, Sydney Austin

It's always interesting to evaluate the work of first-year students at CCS. When I get to review them, their first semester has not quite yet wrapped up. For students relatively new to cartooning, their minicomics output can be quite limited. For some, this is the first time they've ever published anything, thanks to the resources of the CCS lab. Sometimes, it can be obvious that even working through familiar assignments like the Aesop adaptation or the Ed Emberley comic, an artist has a lot to say. (Natalie Norris comes to mind.) There are other times when it's less obvious what kind of leap an artist is capable of making, so long as they are careful to run their own race. Some of the earlier classes at CCS were highly competitive in terms of output, but that seems to be less prevalent these days. 

Sofia Martin's Off The Path is the one comic every CCS student starts with: the application comic. It's a story that must have the following elements in a story: the cartoonist, a robot, a snowman, and a piece of fruit. Here, using a delicate line that also makes great use of black-and-white contrasts, Martin spins a funny story about walking through a snowy forest and encountering a delivery robot that is distressed at the "frown" of a snowman. You can see how Martin's understanding of pacing, transitions, and gesture all contribute to the very gentle gag that is central to this story. Martin's storytelling is understated and subtle, and it will be ideal for sensitive character work. Their lettering is rough; I liked their using different font styles for their character and the robot, but the lettering is too small and cramped. The good news is that the word balloon placement is sensible, so the other issues are simply technique-related and easily correctable. 

Taylor Hunt's attempt at the same assignment is as big and loud as Martin's was quiet and sensitive. The Big JS is a ridiculous noir detective story where the detective is a rotting banana, the femme fatale is a snow-woman (the initial reveal is hilarious), and the victim is a robot. Printed on a series of unfolding & connected cards, the reader keeps flipping down to reveal more story. It's a clever formal trick that adds to the general sense of ridiculousness surrounding the story. Hunt plays up the black-and-white contrast beautifully to create atmosphere, and there are a lot of bold drawings that push out of the panel that add some drama and excitement. Hunt is definitely funny, and I hope he continues to explore humor in his work. The envelope provided with the comic, acting as a case file holder, was another nice formal, decorative touch. 

Finally, Sydney Austin tackles the Aesop assignment with a bigger-sized mini featuring characters from her own Phoenix Of The South graphic novels, titled Break Your Heart. Based on "The Man And The Woods," the story is about a man named Jeremy secretly in love with another man named Will. That love leaves him vulnerable to Will's ill intentions that deliberately play on the attraction he knows that Jeremy feels. Austin smartly plays up the seemingly innocent but very intimate physical contact they share to lead the reader in one direction but also make Will seem unbelievably creepy. The problem with this comic is that it rests too much of its information on previously-written characters; as a result, we have no clue why Will acts as he does, or what Jeremy wants until nearly the end of the comic. The reference to Aesop is shoehorned in and isn't exactly a one-to-one correspondence. In the fable, the trees in the wood give a man with an axe handle a branch each, and then he makes an axe handle with the branches and chops them down. Some of the individual character poses are also a bit stiff and feel overly posed. That said, Austin has a clearly-defined style and themes she's working with, and this is simply a matter of drawing more.